


Secret Santa

by TeamGwenee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fic in September, F/M, Fluffy fluff fluff fluff, Humour, Teeny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 11:44:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20907125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamGwenee/pseuds/TeamGwenee
Summary: There's an elf in the office, and her name is Brienne of Tarth.





	Secret Santa

The day before Christmas.

Secret Santa day.

Shittiest day of the year as far as Brienne was concerned.

Tonight she would be on the train home to Tarth, there to spend her week off free to roam the frosted meadows of her island home.

But first, Secret Santa.

Birthdays she could handle. Leaving gifts were a doddle. Get well cards, get well flowers, engagement gifts, wedding presents, new-borns and new jobs, congratulations and condolences. They were all easy. Death of a mother? Brilliant, box of chocolates and a teddy bear with a card in its paws on your desk by noon.

She just needed to send a few obligatory chain emails asking for donations, receive confirmation emails from half of the office, receive donations from a quarter of the office, send a thank you email to _all_ of the office, do a bit of Facebook stalking and dash down to the shops.

But Secret Santas?

Secret Santas were another ball game altogether. She could send out weekly email reminders to her heart’s content, but it was still a gamble on how many people would actually bring any gifts in. Presents had to be on desks by midday, so morning was spent watching from behind a plastic fern, trying to keep a count of who had brought gifts in and who had not. In a pinch, she would get buff Security Jaime to let her review the CCTV tapes.

Lunch breaks were a mad dash around the shops, grabbing at scarves and books and wallets from the clearance aisle, as well as a quick sprint to Thorntons to stock up on gift boxes.

The gift boxes were for those who had gifts but were likely to be disappointed. The chocolates were just a little ‘top up’, something to level the playing field. Top ups were the trickiest part, because most of the presents were wrapped. She had to make the call depending on past precedent, office politics, individual pay grades and the general quality of the gift wrapping.

Many a year, Brienne was tempted to do away with the top ups, but her nerves just couldn’t handle another disaster like the Secret Santa of 2004. Pia in PR had brought Pod in Postal an 18-year-old bottle of Macallan Sherry Oak Whiskey, and then received a re-gifted bottle of body wash from Baelish in Banking.

After the lunch time dash, it was just a matter of bribing Olyvar the office manager to hold an impromptu fire drill so that she could flit about the office, slipping chocolates and scarves and wallets into desks whilst the office stood grumbling in the basket-ball court across the road.

And even with all her careful planning, there was always the risk of some unforeseen outlier turning the whole day into a catastrophe.

Christmas of 2008, Sansa from Supplies gave her giftee a _song._

(There was just no coming back from that.)

Brienne never received any thanks, of course. And the Secret Santa shopping sprees could hardly be put on expenses, but Brienne knew that it would be a beach body day in Santa’s Workshop before she ever packed it in. 

Too many childhoods at her mum’s new home, spent watching her step-siblings play with hot wheels sets and computer games and new dressage saddles, while she had to pretend to be happy with her hairbrush.

Too many last days of winter term finding herself to be the only one in the class to have no cards in her desk and trying _so_ hard not to cry.

And of course, too many nights spent mulling over the Christmas she had spent with her first boyfriend, the weeks before spent gruelling over a beautiful hand-knitted jumper (no, really, it was stunning) only for Hyle to tell her he’d rather have gotten a blowie instead.

She just couldn’t risk putting other people through what she had been through. Couldn’t stand seeing the look of hope crumble from a person’s face as they began to realise that they had been overlooked; or worse, forgotten.

This year was one of the easiest, it had been clear that Trainee Tyrek would need a top-up from the sticky taped mess Illyn from IT had propped against his computer, and buff Security Jaime had made her life so much easier by coming to her in a panic first thing that morning over having forgotten to buy anything.

(She didn’t judge him. Everyone in the office had suffered alongside him during the faulty furnace fiasco.)

The fire drill ended fifteen minutes from going home time, and the office piled in, falling upon their desks with glee. Casting her eyes across the room, Brienne let out a sigh of relief. Happy faces. Smiling faces. _Content _faces.

Except for one.

Buff Security Jaime watched the cacophony of present exchanges in despair. Brienne knew it couldn’t have been his own gift, for he had been gifted a gift box from Lush, containing all his favourite bath bombs and skin lotions.

“What’s up?” she asked, sidling over.

“I was meant to go shopping in my lunch break, but we had an emergency meeting over stolen pens,” buff Security Jaime admitted, his voice growing hoarse and choked. “I’ve been skint from this whole furnace thing, my dad has cut me off and I only got my bonus today. Myrcella’s alright, she’s fifteen and doesn’t care about unwrapping. I’ll book her some ballet tickets and write it in a card. But my son; he’s only got me, his mum isn’t in…. and all his grandparents are dead, he’s five and he won’t-”

“Be getting any presents from Father Christmas,” Brienne said in horror.

Buff Security Jaime nodded mournfully.

Brienne looked at her watch.

“Right,” she said decisively, “All the toy shops near here shut early for Christmas. Summerglades Shopping centre stays open until midnight, but the roads are rammed this time of night and by the time we get there everything decent will be sold out. Fuck the toy shops.

“We’re going to go to the super-market. Stock up on sweets, chocolates, biscuits, novelty sized bottles of coke. All the things he wants but you never buy him. You’re going to get him a bumper box of sugar. And while we’re at it we’ll stock up on junk for Myrcella because of _course _she cares about unwrapping. Now, what does Tommen like?”

Jaime blinked, overcome by the onslaught of shopping.

“Well?” Brienne demanded.

“Kittens,” Jaime said at last, “he loves kittens.”

“Excellent,” Brienne said with a nod. “There is a kitten café twenty minutes down the road-”

“Kitten café?” Jaime asked numbly.

“A café where you can play with abandoned cats and kittens,” Brienne said dismissively. “There are leaflets for it in the lobby. It’s free. Take one, put it in a card and give it to Tommen. Come on, get moving!”

“Yes Ser!” Jaime said, jumping to attention with a laugh.

“What are you laughing at?” Brienne demanded. This was serious!

“It’s just, Tommen’s friend Shireen has a stepdad working as a Father Christmas, and he’s mad with jealousy. Wait until he finds out I’m working with a real Father Christmas, and her name is Barrister Brienne.”


End file.
